Today, I started the daunting task of sorting and organizing my comic book collection...mostly alphabetizing and filing away the books I read, and separating the books I have yet to read, and also the comics I'm contemplating on selling on ebay.

Then the thought crossed my mind....what the heck am I gonna do with all these comics? I'm lucky enough to have the room to house my collection...but what to do with my collection once I'm on in years?

I've always fantasized the idea of my collection funding my kid's college tuition, which I know is impossible... or maybe passing the collection on to my daughter/grandchildren, etc if they took an interest in comics....or selling it off in my later years when my eyes start failing me. Just a few thoughts among others.

What say you Realmers.....you gonna throw your comics in the trash....donate them to your local library....give them out to trick or treaters?

Graphic novels will go to a library; but they won't have much interest in single issues unless they have a collection begun or are interested in that sort of collection.

I have boatloads of random singles--stuff I started but didn't like, one-shots I don't want anymore. I gave a lot of them to a guy who runs a bar trivia contest here and he gave them out as prizes. People loved it.

Artist friends have asked to use them in collages/paintings/pieces of art.

Otherwise, pass it on to whoever would want it.

I figure my comics & book collections are sort of like my Pez collection--so random that there's a select group that would want them, otherwise they'll just sort of end up at used bookstores, used in art projects, or in the trash.

After awhile (and after countless boxes) it just becomes too much of a pain. That is why I sell my comics on Ebay, about every 6 months to a year and have switched a lot of books to trades. Trades will always find room on my bookshelf while comics that I sell, even when I only get a few bucks for them, just goes to buying more comics.

I still love my collection. I go through it like you, every few months and weed out what I don't care about anymore and sell them on eBay.

As long as I enjoy looking through it I'll keep collecting just for my own enjoyment. If a time comes when it no longer acts as my mello time, I'll give them to a niece or nephew. If none of them want them then they'll go off to eBay for some play money.

Logged

"If I could go back in time and like tell 11 year old me that like not only do you get to go to Comic Con but you go every year. So much so that you get greeted by Stan Lee when you show up. And 11 year old me would be like - How did we get so fat?" - Kevin Smith

I've always fantasized the idea of my collection funding my kid's college tuition, which I know is impossible... or maybe passing the collection on to my daughter/grandchildren, etc if they took an interest in comics....or selling it off in my later years when my eyes start failing me. Just a few thoughts among others.

Funny, I used the college tuition reasoning to justify the expense with my first wife when I started collecting seriously. Like Glenn, I have come to realize how foolish that idea was.One of these days I will figure out how to sell on ebay the proper way and sell most of them off, with a select few being passed down to my kids. You know, those epic storylines that will still be talked about in nerd circles long after I'm gone....

I used to theorize that they could be used for college tuition, too. But the more I think about it, the more I want to leave them to my kid. I plan on teaching him about comic collecting, reading those great storylines with him and so on...and when I'm done...which hopefully won't be until I'm dead...they go to him.

I have moved over 14 long boxes across the country several times (and most recently across town) I have sold some on e-bay, but realize most of my collection is seriously-non-kids-tuition worthy. I have lots of 80s and 90s independents that I likes (Tick, Rovers, Stigs Inferno,etc) that absolutely no one wants now. Fortunately, I have a big "man cave" in the new house, so the boxes aren't in the way, but I have to do something....

I intend to have them all arranged in the form a ziggurat, since there will probably be close to 60 of them or so when I die, and then I will have them lit on fire that will rage for days and signal to the world that they are MINE and that they leave this world with me as I and my collection are immolated in the sign of purest love for what I've held so dear for so long.

Then my ashes, and all the ashes of my comics, will be scooped up by greedy Wizard mag idiots who will seal them in those damned plastic comic cases of theirs, then graded to influence the false industry of buying and selling worthless comics that they single handedly created. HA!